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Faithless
Faithless is a British electronica band consisting of Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Rollo.[2] The group is best known for their dance songs ("Salva Mea", "Insomnia", "God Is a DJ" and "We Come 1"). Faithless recorded six studio albums, with total sales exceeding 15 million records worldwide.[3] The band announced it would split up after their Passing The Baton dates at Brixton Academy on 7 and 8 April 2011.[4] However, on February 2015 they reunited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band. Career The band was formed in early 1995, and their debut single "Salva Mea (Save Me)" was released in July that year.[2] Jazz acted as a vocalist, whilst Bliss constructed most of the music herself electronically, but also played the piano, violin, saxophone and bass guitar. Rollo heads and produces the band. Lead female vocals for many of their songs are performed by Pauline Taylor, who also performed lead vocals for singles by Rollo released under his monikers Rollo Goes Mystic and Rollo Goes Spiritual. Faithless (featuring Cass Fox) performing at theCoachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, 27 April 2007 The albums are Reverence (which reached number 26), Sunday 8PM (reaching number 10), Outrospective (at number 4) and No Roots (which debuted at number 1); they were released between 1996 and 2004, with agreatest hits compilation album out in 2005.[2][5] In light of their dance roots, each of the four studio albums has been followed with a subsequentBONUS disc of remixes. Their fifth album, To All New Arrivals, was released in 2006. Their sixth and final album, The Dance, was released on 16 May 2010, after a four year recording break for the band. Faithless performing at Budapest Sports Arena, on their last tour, The Dance Never Ends, in 21 March 2011 The band also collectively indulge in mixtapes of other musicians' work, either mixed by the group or merely selected by them. This includes the long running Back to Mine sessions as well as The Bedroom Sessions and more recently the Renaissance 3D music project, in conjunction with the Renaissance nightclub. On 29 September 2006, the first single "Bombs" from their album To All New Arrivals made its debut on BBC Radio 1's Pete Tong show. The album was released on 27 November 2006. "Bombs" generated moderate controversy with its music video, as demonstrated by MTV's refusal to air it.[6] The video featured interchanged clips of war scenes and daily life. As said by the director of the music video Howard Greenhalgh, "War infects all our lives; recently it feels that this has increasingly become 'our way of life'".[citation needed] In October 2007 they played alongside Talib Kweli and Ozomatli and one of China's earliest music festivals, Yue, organised by Split Works.[7] Final studio album and retirement announcement On 7 August 2009, a dub mix of the track "Sun to Me" from their latest studio album, The Dance, made its debut on BBC Radio 1's Pete Tong show. "Sun to Me" has been given as aFREE DOWNLOAD to all users that have registered on the new Faithless site, or subscribed to their newsletter. The track has been released on the band's Myspace page as well. On 12 February 2010, the first official single from the next Faithless album was played on Pete Tong's show. The single, "Not Going Home", was released on 4 May 2010, whilst the latest album The Dance, was issued on 16 May 2010. The album is available only in Tesco (3 month exclusive contract) and via iTunes in the UK. Since 2009, their track "Drifting Away" has been thetheme tune for the BBC Television's Chelsea Flower Show coverage.[8] In 2010, they returned to the Glastonbury Festival after eight years, playing on the Pyramid Stage. They performed many of their most popular songs including "Insomnia", "God is a DJ", and "We Come 1". On 16 March 2011, Maxi Jazz announced on his website that Faithless would cease to be, commenting "But, like when writing a song, you always just know when it’s finished… this is and was the Thank YOU And Goodbye tour."[9] They played two nights at Brixton Academy on 7 and 8 April 2011. The latter date would allegedly be the final full Faithless touring band show and was transmitted live via satellite to cinemas across Europe. Stripped-down later activity The Faithless 'Sound System' (consisting of Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and percussionist Sudha Kheterpal) performed shows on 22 July 2011 at the Tomorrowland festival in Belgium, at the Waterford Music Fest in Ireland on 30 July[10] and in Split (Croatia) at the Riva Discothèque on 12 August.[11] They also performed in Dubai on 31 December 2012. They currently - albeit only occasionally - continue to perform in Faithless Sound System format and more recently via 'Live PA and DJ' sets incorporating Maxi Jazz and Sister Bliss only. Jazz provides live vocals on four to five Faithless songs played by Sister Bliss, with the rest of the one hour sets being made up of mixed tracks by other artists. In this format, their first appearance in the UK since 2011 took place at the new Brixton Electric nightclub on 31 May 2013. A further one-off appearance in the same format and the same venue took place on 6 June 2014. The events have been charity-orientated in aid of Crystal Palace Football Club's youth academy. 20th Anniversary On 10 February 2015, it was announced that the band would celebrate their 20th anniversary with a headlining performance at "one of London's most iconic open air venues". They will headline the Saturday Night at the SW4 Festival on Clapham Common. They are also the opening/headlining act for the Lytham Festival weekend in Lancashire in August. To mark the 20-year milestone in theirCAREER, they will release the album titled "Faithless 2.0. (Special Remix Album)" which is scheduled for release in September 2015. It includes remixes of their tracks from Avicii, Tiesto, Rudimental, Flux Pavilion, Above & Beyond, Booka Shade, Claptone, High Contrast, Eric Prydz, Purple Disco Machine, Armin Van Buuren, Disciples, Until The Ribbon Breaks and Autograf, as well as several brand new tracks from Faithless (Hands feat. Kyala La Grange being one of them). Other work As well as their own studio albums, all three members actively engage in other people's work as solo figures. Sister Bliss is a prominent dance DJ and has for a long time toured the circuit on her own, remixed others' albums and even appeared in music videos, such as Paul Oakenfold's "Weekend". Maxi Jazz brought out an album before the formation of Faithless and also worked on pirate radio. He also collaborated with Faithless founding member Jamie Cattoon his new project 1 Giant Leap guesting on a song with Robbie Williams. Finally, Rollo founded the label Cheeky Records and has produced the music of other artists, most notably his sister Dido's albums, as well as using various monikers to create popular dance music under the names Rollo Goes … (Camping, Mystic and Spiritual), Felix, Our Tribe (with Rob Dougan), and Dusted. Name Maxi Jazz is sometimes incorrectly referred to as 'Faithless', with a misconception existing that the band is actually a solo artist. Discography *''Reverence'' (1996) *''Sunday 8PM'' (1998) *''Outrospective'' (2001) *''No Roots'' (2004) *''To All New Arrivals'' (2006) *''The Dance'' (2010) Category:English dance music groups Category:English electronic music groups Category:English house music groups Category:British techno music groups Category:Trip hop groups Category:British trance music groups Category:Remixers Category:Women in electronic music